Friendship, Love, and Sugar Village
by Rhianwen
Summary: A collection of tinytiny stories, each featuring a different pairing possibility or impossibility from Save the Homeland. Slash, femmeslash, and het coexist happily, and the stories range from fluffysilly to angst. Chapter 13: DiaGina. Again.
1. LouisParsley

Friendship, Love, and Sugar Village

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Disclaimer: I don't own them, and I can't help but feel that they would probably look at me funny. :)

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Summary: A collection of tinytiny stories, each featuring a different pairing possibility (or impossibility) from Save the Homeland. Mostly conceived while communing with my Playstation 2 too long and too late. Will contain slash, femmeslash, and het.

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Parsley likes to think that he's always been a pretty nice guy. After all, it's hard to step on a lot of toes, being a Plant Hunter.

And he's friendly, too.

So when he came to Sugar Village, it wasn't surprising that he started making friends right away. Lyla, who ran the flower shop, Wallace and Katie at the Moonlight Café, the new farmer Jack, the carpenter Woody, oh, Parsley could talk with just about anyone who had any knowledge or interest in plants.

Lyla was _very_ interested. In plants, and in Parsley. He could tell, sure; he preferred plants to women, but he wasn't _stupid_.

He could also tell that Louis, the shy, unkempt genius at the tool shop, liked Lyla a lot. Far more than Parsley ever could.

It was also around the time that he met Louis that Parsley began to have an interest in tools and rocks and messy black hair and thick, round glasses.

It didn't really matter while their attention was focused on the Blue Mist that Jack meticulously cared for all summer in the hopes that it might bring the Azure Swallowtail butterfly that might be the key in saving the town; they all spent time together then, him and Jack and Louis and Lyla.

But now that the flower has bloomed, and he has no more _official_ interest in the project, Parsley wonders what he should do.

He knows that Lyla has one idea; he also knows that Louis is gritting his teeth and waiting for it to happen, while Jack watches the whole thing in head-tilting confusion. 

So, Parsley does what any nice guy would do: he decides to take a long, long journey.

Long enough for Lyla to think of him and remember a _friend_.

Long enough for her to look at Louis and see something more.

And Parsley, chatting with his seatmate on the train to somewhere far away, thinks more about messy dark hair and thick round glasses and a lilting tune played on the flute than about the plants he'll find, and wonders if there are maybe drawbacks to being the nice guy. 

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	2. GwenKatie

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Katie's a brat; it's a fact, just like _Kurt is grumpy_, or _Joe likes fish_, or _Wallace is old_.

So how, Gwen wonders, baffled, does everyone else seem to miss it?

Is it because she's so cute? Because she is; that's a fact, too.

But that just makes her more of a brat, because she knows she'll get away with it, and every time Gwen sees long ruddy-brown curls bouncing against something frilly and pink when she walks, sees that sweet, starry smile, hears that giggle that makes the whole world summer, it riles her up until she has to go yell at Bob before she can be calm again.

But when she gets word that Katie is looking to enter and win that cake contest as her ticket out of Sugar Valley, well, that riles her up even more.

It isn't that she _wants_ Katie around; she could care less if the brat stayed or went. But Katie's a part of Sugar Valley, just like the rest of them. It's her home. So what gives her the right to just wash her hands of the whole situation and run away to live a glamorous city life, while everyone else has to watch the town smashed down by a bulldozer?

So, she warns Jack not to give Katie that recipe she's after, because she's sick of those sugar-sweet looks Katie's been giving _the new boy_, sick of seeing them become a little less wheedling and a little more genuine everyday.

But when Jack turns up, telling her she was wrong about Katie's intentions in entering the contents, it doesn't do much to mollify her.

Because even if Katie's _only trying to help_, she still has no right.

No right to chase after the first cute farmer that smiles at her, and no right to leave Gwen without a cute little brat to be annoyed with. 

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	3. JoeKurt

Note: Yes, Joe/Kurt. That means an incest warning. Any flames will be ignored or picked apart for grammatical errors. I usually find that flamers leave several.

Anyway, I know that this pairing has a few fans, so, well, this one's for you. :)

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It's pretty lonely, up here in the middle of nowhere. Kurt thinks it's starting to warp him, being away from all (normal) humanity.

That happens, doesn't it? Aren't there stories about mountain men who live alone for years and start going insane and muttering to themselves all the time?

Guys in prison, who never thought they'd do it, but after twenty years without a woman, that pretty curly-haired boy, still eighteen and soft, starts looking pretty good?

_That_, he maintains, is the only reason he's starting to think these things.

The only reason that he blushed when Joe, on a particularly hot day last week, stripped off his shirt and kept right on working, until his chest and back and arms gleamed with sweat.

The only reason he stuck around to talk a while when he found Joe out behind their tiny cabin in that old tin wash bin, up to his waist in warm, soapy water, and didn't look away despite his blush when Joe stood up to get a towel.

The only reason he didn't pull away when Joe kissed him.

His _brother_, for crying out loud.

But there's only so long he can lie to himself and say _it's just because they're both lonely_, because he's not an idiot, and he knows Joe isn't either. There are plenty of girls around here, and most of them are pretty cute, for hick-town hill-folk.

Gwen, for one smoking-hot example. She's got Bob, but that shouldn't stop him from looking. Especially since she seems to like guys looking at her body, or she probably wouldn't walk around in a bra all day.

Or Katie, the cute girl at the Café who's crazy about Joe.

Okay, not Katie; Kurt can't stand that little brat, especially when she shows up and chatters at Joe for hours at a time. He wonders why the hell Joe puts up with it, never mind why he looks like he's having fun.

But there's Lyla. She's gorgeous, in a refined, ladylike, sugary kind of way. Hell, he even asked him to teach her about growing flowers, just to get his mind off parts of his brother it shouldn't be on. And now, he loves gardening, but he _likes_ Lyla at best.

Even those girls up at Clove Villa. The dark-haired rich girl is pretty, especially when she sends him a tiny glimmer of a smile when he's up looking for herbs. And he suspects that her little blue-haired maid would go from _cute_ to _stunning_ if she'd let her hair down and lose the glasses.

Sometimes, Kurt wonders if Joe agonizes like this over being _more than brothers_ when on one's looking. Somehow, he doesn't think so.

Once, after a night lying awake wondering if he's a sicko, he thought snidely that Joe wasn't smart enough to think about things like this, and when he turned over to watch the younger boy sleeping, lips beautiful as a girls and curved up into a smile, he spent the rest of the night awake feeling like a jerk.

Joe's not dumb; he's probably smarter than most of the people around here. Definitely smarter than Kurt.

He's just innocent, and that's why it never occurs to him that he might be a bad person for loving someone.

Sometimes, Kurt kind of wishes he could be innocent like that, too. Like when he was a kid, and he loved Joe like a brother and a best friend and a cute little girl that _he's gonna marry someday_ all in one.

And maybe, if Joe will help him, he'll be able to get that back.

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End Notes: And that's that. I hope I managed to do the pairing justice.  



	4. DiaGina

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For _very best friends in the whole world_, sometimes Dia and Gina don't communicate very well.

Maybe it's because they've known each other forever, or at least long enough to _usually_ read each other with flawless precision.

It would be a lot easier, Dia thinks, huffing in annoyance as her best friend looks away with that same sad, lost look that's been in her eyes for the past season, if Gina wasn't so abnormally good at just _missing the point_. 

She's been moping about that silly farmer, pining away and moping because _the Prince never _really _falls for the homely, wholesome little maid._

And just now, when she finally announced, exhausted but beaming with pride at her work, that the Goddess Robe was finished, and Dia floated downstairs draped in the shimmery fabric fashioned into a beautiful gown, Gina watched her with _such _a sad smile.

"You look beautiful, Miss. We have to go show Jack tomorrow; he'll love to see you looking so lovely."

Sweet, selfless, stupid Gina. Completely missing that Jack has only been here, throughout all of this, for _her_. A perfunctory smile for Dia, of course, and a genuinely warm greeting for Martha, but nothing like the way his eyes light up and his ears turn brightly red when Gina bustles quietly into the room.

Completely missing that his admiring look, when the girls visit the farmhouse to present their – _Gina's_ work – is for the beautifully made dress and its seamstress, not the dark-haired girl modeling it.

But that isn't the only point Gina is missing lately. Maybe it's better, though, that she doesn't notice that Dia liked Jack a lot more when the rumor was that _he_ liked _Lyla_. Now she thinks she might hate him: hate his goofy smile, and his scraggly ponytail, and that horrible hat, and the way his eyes lingered on Gina when she walked, no doubt imagining things that only Dia was allowed to see when they bathed together.

This, she thinks wearily, must be what growing up is about: realizing that no matter how badly you want something, you can't always have it, and all the money in the world won't make Gina see what's right in front of her.

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And when they arrive back at the Villa, Dia locks herself in her room and refuses flatly to come out, ordering Gina to go visit her _farmer _again, if she's so lonely.

Gina would love to stay and persist, call to Dia through the door and tell her that she's _missed the point_, and Jack is a nice boy, just like a favourite cousin or a nice older brother, but he likes _pretty_ girls, not girls like Gina, and Dia is _very_ pretty. Maybe she should try being a little nicer to Jack if she likes him, even though Gina hopes she won't, because she doesn't _want_ Dia to get married and go away and leave her with only Grandma, because she loves Grandma, but she loves Dia more, and differently.

But it isn't her place to try to correct the Master's daughter, even when she's being silly, so she just slinks down the stairs with a wistful little backward glance over her shoulder at that closed and locked door, and thinks how nice it would be if Jack would marry Gwen or Lyla or Katie and stop making Dia angry with her.

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But even girls who aren't good at communicating sometimes find their way, with the help of an old lady who wants to see her two darlings happy, even if it means that she may never get to see either of them in a wedding gown.

So when Jack shows up at the Villa again a few days to see shining dark and shimmering blue heads bent close together, sees Dia run one finger softly and reverently over Gina's lips before kissing her hesitantly and uncertainly, he grins despite a little wrench of pain when Gina kisses back.

So, they finally got the point; took them long enough. 

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	5. BobJack

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Bob thinks that you can tell a lot about a guy by the way he treats his horse.

That's why, even when that new guy, Jack, made fast friends with _his_ horses inside of a week, Bob wasn't quite ready to admit that the guy was okay.

_Anyone _can get along with someone else's horses; especially when he's being paid for it.

So, Bob went with his instinct and gave Jack a horse. A beautiful ruddy-brown creature that Jack immediately named Moe. 

Nutcase.

But he's a good guy; Bob knows that now, because Moe is almost as happy with Jack as he was with Bob and Gwen and all the other horses to prance around with. Bob's willing to lay down money that Jack loves that horse like he loves his mother.

And when he shows up at Sirius Farm one morning to explain to Jack how training a race horse is going to work, and finds the long-haired youth brushing and cuddling and chatting happily to his horse, Bob has to laugh a bit.

Now he's sure that Jack's a great guy, but he's not so sure about himself anymore; after all, he's never been jealous of a horse before.

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	6. KatieGina

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When Katie found out about the Goddess Dress from Gwen, who heard from Joe, who heard from Kurt, who heard from Lyla, who heard from Jack, she's delighted.

First off, because Gina spends so much time in everyone else's shadow, content to offer support and keep things moving smoothly without receiving much admiration for it, and Katie thinks it's high time she do something that _she_ wants to do, because _she _wants to do it.

And besides that, Gina really, really needs a pretty new dress. Even if she'll have to send it in for the contest, it'll do her good to see herself in something light and shimmery and a little sexier than that poofy-black-dress-and-apron number she lives in the rest of the time.

Katie offers to help immediately, because she's done a bit of designing in her time, so even though she finds Gina bubbling with ideas already, really really _good_ ideas, she can still help her jot down enough information to make a good pattern.

And she's really looking forward to the part where she gets to order Gina down to her underclothes and take her measurements, and maybe "accidentally" touch a few things.

So when she finds out the dress is going to be for Dia, Katie's mad. Really, really mad. Steaming mad.

Like Dia _needs_ another dress! Like Gina _needs_ to win Dia's friendship through presents!

They're already way too close, even though Katie doesn't really know what it is about that, that bothers her so much.

But despite Katie's scary steaming mad temper tantrum, Gina holds fast, because she's got that sweet, quiet, gentle stubbornness thing down cold. She's making a dress for Dia, she insists, as a surprise.

With a sad little sigh, Katie vows that she's going to go home and learn to sew, so she can make Gina a pretty dress.

But in the meantime, since the dress is going to be a surprise for Dia, they can't take her measurements; and since Gina and Dia have almost _identical_ figures, Katie gets to make her strip down after all.

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	7. LouisGina

Louis/Gina

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He's not good with girls; Louis knows this, and he's come, over the years, to just accept it and move on.

There have been girls he's liked; there's even one that he's firmly convinced he loves. But that doesn't make him good around them. He never knows what to say, so he doesn't say anything, and then they think he's cold or stupid.

And he knows that girls don't like men in clothes that are too baggy, or too short, and cobbled together with safety pins and patches.

So the first time a little blue-haired girl slipped into the Tool Shop, clothes and hair drenched, glasses rain-streaked and fogging badly, he panicked a bit.

Especially when she asked him, very respectfully – called him Sir, even – if he would mind her company long enough for the storm to lighten a little, because she was having a terrible finding her way.

He turned red, because he didn't know yet that she calls everyone Sir, and it doesn't mean that she thinks they look old or that she's afraid of them. But he let her stay to stay, because he knew that walking in the rain with glasses was like trying to see your way through a fishbowl, and even gave her a towel to dry her hair because he wondered what it looked like down.

They didn't talk a lot, because he's not good with girls, and she hates to be a bother, but when the storm finally lightened, she gave him a small, sweet smile that made him feel like his discomfort might have been worth it.

The next time she came to visit, she had a little more to say to him, because she came specifically to thank him for ordering in that Silk Thread for Jack. They moved from the thread, to the strange metals she sometimes found from digging in the garden, to the easiest ways to prepare an egg.

It was then that he thought, surprised, that Gina was very easy to talk to. He didn't know if it was that she didn't giggle and chatter like other girls, or that she could sit still when occasion required, or that she didn't seem to care about her appearance and was hard to offend, but an hour had passed before he'd known ten minutes was up.

A third and fourth visit later, the visits began to come at greater frequency, and Louis stopped turning red and silent when he saw her, and calling out a cheerful greeting with the twinkling smile that few women knew about.

On days when the shop was closed, she would somehow manage to hunt him down on his walks by the lake – that is, when he didn't specifically amble up to Clove Villa to wait for her shift to end so she could join him. They might end up in the café for some of her favourite herb tea, or he might offer to brew her a cup before he started work on his latest invention before a captive audience.

All the while, Louis thought he was finding more to say than he ever had to a woman. Gina, he learned quickly, had an avid interest in his inventions and plans for future ones, asked as many questions as he was willing to answer about tools and their proper use and construction, and hung on his every word in a way that he thought dimly should have made him nervous.

It didn't make him nervous, but there were other things to do that. Namely, a gradual awareness that he had finally found something that he couldn't talk to her about. Sweet, sensible Gina, with her ruffled apron and her prim black dress and her Mary Janes and her braids, like a little girl but not, so easy to talk to, deserved to hear it from him, these three little words that were making his stomach twist up nervously whenever he even thought them.

And because she deserves better than someone who can't choke out three simple words, he thinks, gathering up what scraps of courage hadn't vanished the moment she came trotting toward him through the square with that refined yet brightly beaming smile, he'll take his chances, even though he's no good with girls and he knows it.

But apparently, he thinks a few moments later, panicked and incredulous and exhilirated as her eyes grow wide and her cheeks brightly pink before she throws herself affectionately at him, he's good enough.

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End Notes: Teehee...that was fun. Although, all the glasses-augmented cuteness almost made me pass out. XD I'll probably do one with these two based in Magical Melodies eventually, because I think they'd go pretty well together. And they both love Green Peppers! OTP! XD


	8. DiaLyla

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Lyla has always had a soft spot for sweet, soft-spoken, ladylike girls.

She loves Gwen dearly, like the bratty, noisy little sister that everyone still adores, and she thinks a little wistfully that Katie will make someone a beautiful wife someday, in spite of blustering and giggling.

But somehow, a shy, quiet, feminine young lady can talk her into just about anything.

Which is why she's very genuinely glad when the pretty little blue-haired girl whose glasses and braids have given her that distinct aura of _please don't look at me_ and have led to her utterly baffling description as _homely_, wanders into the Flower Shop, still brand-new to the town, one summer morning.

Hasn't she just heard something about the bespectacled little maid and that new farmer in town? She's been hoping for a chance to tease her a little.

"Good morning, Gina," Lyla greets warmly. "I don't see you in here much. Can I help you with something?"

"Oh! Um, actually, I'm here on an errand for Grandma," the younger girl replies, blushing soft warm pink and smiling sheepishly. "She would like to plant some potato seeds out back at the Villa."

"Alright, how many would you like?"

"I think four packages, to start."

As Lyla counts out and wraps her purchase, Gina peeks curiously around, cheeks flushed with delight over the vibrant colours and sweet fragrances of all the flowers.

"Your shop is very beautiful, Miss Lyla; Miss Dia would love it."

Miss Dia...the little dark-haired, green-eyed girl she's seen wandering the forest, deep in thought, early in the evenings?

She laughs softly.

"Well, then, why don't you come back again tomorrow, and bring Miss Dia with you?"

Gina's eyes grow sad.

"Oh, I can't do that. She's ill right now, and the Master – her father, you know – doesn't like it when she socializes with me."

"She likes flowers?" Lyla asks as Gina's expression turns horrified, presumably at revealing something she hadn't meant to.

"Yes, very much. But she doesn't get to have them indoors very often, because she's allergic to some kinds, and she gets illso often already."

"I have some mild allergies, too. But Pink Catmint flowers don't usually aggrivate them terribly; I think they're supposed to be good for that," the pink-haired woman muses aloud, already hurrying across the shop to gather up a bundle. Then she turns, and sends Gina a beaming smile. "I'm glad, because they're my favourite. Baby's Breath and a little bit of fern shouldn't give her any problems either, and they'll add a little bit of interest." With a triumphant little laugh, she deftly wraps a wide, sheer ribbon of soft purple around the bouquet, and hands it to a startled Gina, along with the potato seeds. "Tell your Miss Dia to get well soon, so you two can come back and visit."

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And several mornings later, after Lyla has stopped waiting hopefully for her _new friends_ to drop by, she finds a pretty little basked of sweetgrass, filled generously with plump, dusky deep purple blueberries. A single Pink Catmint is wound artfully around the handle, and a little note is tucked carefully away from the berries.

With a thoroughly mystified smile, she carries the little basket inside, savours a few of the berries, ripened to perfection and with all the indefinable tang of wild-grown fruit, and unfolds the slip if paper.

_Dear Miss Lyla,_

_Thank-you very much for your gift. The flowers are beautiful, and I am enjoying them very much. Gina told me all about your shop, and I am looking forward to coming to see it, and meet you, for myself. Gina also told me that Pink Catmint flowers are your favourites, so I would like to share some of my favourite blueberries with you. Please enjoy them, and come stop by Clove Villa whenever you like._

_Sincerely, Dia._

The prim little paragraph is written in dainty, feminine script, and the pale violet-coloured paper smells faintly of the same.

Lyla rereads it a few times, with a little laugh of delight, and then picks up the basket and starts off for the Villa.

Perhaps she and Miss Dia can enjoy the blueberries together over tea.

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	9. KurtGina

Kurt/Gina

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Something's up. 

Kurt's a smart guy; he can tell.

He doesn't get dragged from his early-morning daze by two chattering, giggling girls who usually barely even _talk_ in public, every morning.

He doesn't look up from Lyla's flowers to the sight of that Dia girl from Clove Villa inching nervously along, keeping the hem of something light and shimmery carefully out of the dirt, every morning.

He _really_ doesn't stand up slowly when a little flash of blue catches his eye, and then stare in bewilderment as Dia's little glasses-wearing maid pops into view, beaming the kind of pride he's not sure he's ever seen on anyone, and he's _damn_ sure he's never seen on her, every morning.

His eyes jump from that gorgeous dress the dark-haired girl's got on, to the other girl, and back and forth a few more times, and even through a state of immobility that's only partly the result of the hardcore crush he's been working on for a while now, he's pretty sure his admiration is for the _seamstress_, not the _model_.

He's been apprenticing for Woody long enough that he can tell that too, can see at a glance that she's the one with bruised fingers and aching back and shoulders from hours curled in over her work, working the needle through layers of fabric. You can always tell who the craftsman was if you look carefully; it shows in their face when they look at their _baby_.

Woody always laughs at him when he comes back annoyed from a delivery because the recipient of the piece, up to the same nearly impossible standards Woody always sets for himself, took all the credit in front of a gushing friend. _N'yes, lovely, isn't it? I walked all the way down to the workshop and filled out the order form myself_.

Returning to his gardening as their laughter dies away, he barely notices a little smile creeping over the corners of his mouth.

Now he knows they have something in common; maybe now he can work up the nerve to find out more.

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	10. BobGina

Bob/Gina

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As a lifelong disciple of Douglas Adams, Gina thought that Arthur Dent had certainly known what he was about when he announced that he _just couldn't get the hang of Thursdays_.

What day but Thursday could see her waking up late, throwing on a frivolous, impractical little summer dress – one of last year's projects – in her haste and tearing off to the Supermarket on an errand for Grandma, barely decently dressed and not at all appropriately for the chill autumn day?

What day but Thursday could see her so annoyed and flustered by Ronald's admiring looks and teasing at her _new look_, that she found herself hopelessly lost in her home town for the past three years and ended up wandering bewilderedly around a farmyard for a handsome, ponytailed young man to find when he emerged from the barn?

What day but Thursday could see her staring, bewildered, bright red, and breathless, as the farmer greeted her cheerfully with a smile that made the whole world spring?

And finally, what day but Thursday could see her starting dizzily back to the Villa, up through Brownie Farm, pondering the mathematical probability of _love at first sight_, only to find herself thrown to the ground by something large and moving like a shot, as the sound of pounding hooves thundered around her?

Struggling for breath around the massive weight at her chest and this strange sensation of sudden dizziness, Gina squeezes her eyes shut to keep out the dust stirred by a runaway horse.

Then, as a thrill whispers down the back of her neck as her senses focused, against her will, on the broad, muscular chest, pressed tightly to her, damp sweaty heat singing through her, she squeezes them tighter shut and bites her lips.

Solid, defined arms protective and iron-strong on either side of her.

Long, muscled legs tangling with hers, pressing her hard into the ground.

Hasn't she had a dream something like this?

"Are you alright?"

She smiles shyly up at him, blushing slightly and ducking behind her hand.

It's surprising, she thinks dizzily, just how nice it is, the scent of fresh air and sunshine and hard work clinging to him, even with that hint of barn-animal-smells shining through.

"I'm alright, thank-you, Sir," she assures him quickly when he quirks a curious eyebrow at the silent, dazed young woman beneath him, and she wonders if he's going to scold her for calling him _Sir_ when they've known each other for a few years already, even though they've rarely spoken, and she spent the first two a little afraid of him.

"Sorry about that," Bob laughs, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly as he drags himself off her and lifts her to her feet. "I yelled, but you were daydreaming. Look, don't go anywhere," he adds, cutting her off mid-apology. "I've got to go find Perry – spooked horse running around town without a rider's not good – but I'll be back in a minute to take a look at you, make sure everything's okay. Don't want to send you off with a concussion or something."

With that, he's off and running, and Gina wanders slowly over to the wide rough wooden steps of the Farm Shop and sits, chin in her hands, wondering how to get word to Grandma and Miss Dia that she'll be back late.

She's so lost in her thoughts of whether or not she'd have time to run and tell Grandma and get back before Mr. Bob returned with his horse, that she jumps a little when a friendly voice calls from across the yard, and the next moment the rancher is leading the horse back to the pasture and then jogging back towards her.

"Hey! Good, you probably needed to sit down. Feeling better?"

"Oh! Um, much better, thank-you," she beams, her smile fading and her cheeks growing red as he comes to stand in front of her and, even after she climbs to her feet, towers over her. "I think I ought to be going, though; Miss Dia will be angry if I'm late."

He catches her arm and peers down at her curiously.

"You sure? You still look a little dizzy."

"W-well, I was having a hard time breathing at first, but I'm alright now."

"Ah, gotcha," he grins, half walking her to the gate and half trotting to keep up with her. "Knocked the wind out of you, huh? Sorry."

Gina says nothing, but thinks that although he's knocked _something_ out of her, it might not be the _wind_, and he certainly needn't apologize.

Perhaps the matter of falling madly in love at first sight with the new boy in town can wait a little while.

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	11. KatieGwen

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The first time Katie met Gwen, she was a little afraid of her. When she was nine and new to town and anxious for some new friends, and Gwen was eleven and untrustworthy of outsiders and especially untrusting of cute big-eyed little _city-girls_, even ones who had just lost their parents and spent most of their time hiding in the Café with Grandpa because they were scared of the world.

But it wasn't long after that Katie stopped hiding and came out to play with the other kids.

Joe took her in right away, because he knew what it was like to lose his parents, and anyway, he liked girls with curly hair and big eyes and pretty laughs when they finally started laughing again.

But Katie still ended up running home in tears, because Gwen ordered her away, and even though Joe was eleven _and a half_ and a whole three inches taller than Gwen, he still backed down when she ruthlessly declared Katie _too young_, even though Kurt was only eight-and-three-quarters and that's only a little older.

Katie was steaming mad, and _really disappointed_, and only felt a little better when Joe showed up a little while later to take her for a walk to the pond in the mountains.

Even when Joe started playing with her _all_ the time instead of Gwen and Bob and Kurt, she still watched wistfully when Gwen sashayed past the windows of the Café, ponytail swinging, lean and tanned and strong and prettier than any other girl in town.

Katie thought that maybe she just wanted a girl friend, because Joe was cute and funny and tried to be interested in romantic stories and cakes and ribbons and kittens, but he was still a _boy_, and he didn't understand about _girl things_. And since Gwen was the only girl in town, Katie was just out of luck.

But then Clove Villa was built when she was thirteen, and a rich family moved in, and Katie had _two_ girls her age to talk to.

Not that Dia talked much. For that matter, neither did Gina. But Gina listened. She listened and smiled while Katie rambled on about romantic stories and cakes and ribbons and kittens and Joe's smile, and Katie had a girl friend at last.

She thought that _now_ she wouldn't care anymore that Gwen didn't like her and called out teasing comments whenever she passed and tried to order her away from Joe because _puppy-love never lasts and you'll just end up hurting him_, but she still sighed when she saw a horse and begged Grandpa to let her serve when Mr. Woody came in, because she might get to hear what things Gwen liked and why Katie wasn't one of them.

And then, only a few years later, when the town was put in danger of being paved over for a theme park, Katie was so scared for her home and for Grandpa's home and for Grandpa, whose tired, kindly old eyes were even older and tireder and so, so sad, that she forgot to think about Gwen.

But then she found the flier for the cake contest, and thought immediately of old Mrs. Harvest's special cake that Grandpa used to talk about with that soft, adoring sparkle in his smile, and decided with all the stubbornness of sixteen that she was going to save Sugar Village.

And when a weird rumor gets back to her, she wonders, somewhere away at the back of her mind, if maybe she should just let people go ahead and think that she's doing this to win the money and move back to the city.

After all, if Gwen thinks she's leaving, it might shove her into realizing something that Katie's been trying to ignore for the last seven years.

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End Notes: Yaay! This time Katie's crushing on Gwen! The last Gwen/Katie one came out way better, but the fact still remains that I love these two cute li'l gals together. 3


	12. JoeKatie

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She still can't believe he did it.

Katie would have staked her very reputation as a giggly little brat with a bug phobia on the certainty that the Silver Fish didn't even _exist_, yet there was the scale, in Jack's hand, and there was the paperwork naming Sugar Village as a wildlife preserve, and there was Joe, grinning at Jack's elbow and gloating and _I-told-you-so-_ing.

He's going to be impossible to get along with for the next _year_.

Not that she minds, because Katie would rather _not_ get along with Joe in Sugar Village than get along with Joe anywhere else.

And speaking of Joe, he's probably going to be coming to collect on the _favour_ he won in their silly bet that Jack wouldn't catch the fish before winter.

So, she'll just beat him to it.

"Okay, Joe," she huffs as she stomps over to the lake where he's standing with his fishing rod, not fishing, just staring in awe at the water. "You win."

And now her arms are winding around his neck, and her hands are in his hair, and his bandana is falling off, and his fishing rod is rolling into the lake, and Katie is thinking that she should have done this a long time ago, because Joe's a _way_ better kisser than she thought.

And Joe, who was just going to make Katie spend an afternoon fishing with him, completely forgets that this wasn't all his idea in the first place, and makes a point to win another bet sometime soon.

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End Notes: It's a canon pairing! See? I still know how to do these. XD


	13. DiaGina2

Their Own Fairytale - Dia/Gina

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From the first time Martha read those stories to two tiny girls cuddled into her lap in exquisite little white nightgowns made by her own hand, Dia and Gina have loved to _play fairytale_ more than anything else.

At least, Dia has; Gina has always loved more than anything to see Miss Dia smiling instead of looking sad and lost because the master's wife doesn't come home anymore even when the master does.

And playing fairytale makes Miss Dia smile.

Dia, who has been the frail little princess all her life, always sick with something and easily tired when she isn't, plays the Handsome Prince, trotting around in her riding clothes, snug leather breeches and smart little green velvet blazer, pretending that Martha's mop is her horse.

And Gina, who has been the princess's _attendant_ since Grandma first brought her here, is dressed up in one of Miss Dia's fanciest little frocks, with a necklace pinned over her hair, long and uncharacteristically loose about her shoulders, to be the Sleeping Princess and the Evil Enchantress by turn.

They'll stage swordfights as well as two little girls whose entire experience with such things extends to the pictures in the heavy volumes Martha reads from possibly can. (Although after they've finished reading Ivanhoe, curled up together on the big cushions in Dia's room just as soon as Gina is finished with her work, they both decide gravely that their technique has gotten _much_ better)

Once the Evil Enchantress has been vanquished, tapped gently over the head with the broom handle and tackled – carefully, so as not to wrinkle Dia's pretty dress – to the floor, Gina will scurry into Miss Dia's bedroom and take up her role as the Sleeping Princess.

Dia will approach the bed silently and reverently, taking a moment to really feel the Prince's awe at this vision of beauty before him, and then she'll lean over her bespectacled Princess, eyelids fluttering slightly in an effort to look natural, and drop a kiss, light as a rose petal, on her best friend's lips, soft pink and slightly parted.

Sometimes the game ends here, with Gina sitting up dizzily, rubbing her eyes until Dia frowns at her because it ruins the mood.

But sometimes, when Martha isn't too busy, the game continues and the Handsome Prince and the Sleeping Princess are wed by the Kindly Godmother. Dia made the mistake, once, of asking Papa to be their Priest, but she's never done it again, because it really wasn't worth the trouble of explaining to Gina all afternoon that she's not just _the help_, and they really are best friends forever. There was something about pulling her best friend into a warm hug and drying her tears with a delicate lacy hankie that Dia liked, but it still wasn't worth Gina's lingering misery, just to have a priest with a properly solemn, dignified expression.

And anyway, they haven't played Fairytale much lately.

Gina's been so busy, and Dia's come to prefer snuggling down amid her pile of cushions with a favourite book and letting the hours fly by, to running around.

Besides, she doesn't know how she feels about _stage-kissing_ Gina anymore.

She thinks sometimes that if she stooped low over her Sleeping Princess, let her lips brush over those beautiful soft pale pink ones, she wouldn't stop when Gina's eyes fluttered open, would just keep doing it until they were both breathless and Papa came in blazing with fury.

However, she thinks with a sly little smile when she finds Gina sound asleep at the kitchen table over the book she started on her lunch break, Papa isn't here right now.

Dia approaches her attendant, heart catching in her throat at the fans of spidery little shadows Gina's eyelashes are casting on smooth, pale cheeks. She bends closer, and freezes as Gina murmurs a little in her sleep and smiles contentedly, cuddling her book.

The little dark-haired girl smiles slightly to herself, then presses a swift kiss to her best friend's slightly parted lips, and scurries silently from the room, a hard little knot already gathering in her throat because she doesn't know when she'll get to do that again, and once just wasn't enough.

And meanwhile, Gina cautiously opens one eye to find the Master's daughter gone, then sits up and sighs sadly. She feels a little bad about resorting to trickery, but just now, it can't be helped.

Who knows how long it might take before Miss Dia will kiss her when she's awake?

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End file.
